Disclosure context

About ryuk

**Overview:** Ryuk is a prominent ransomware operation that emerged in October 2018, primarily motivated by financial gain through high-value targeted attacks against enterprise networks. The group became one of the most destructive ransomware families, focusing on large organizations capable of paying substantial ransoms rather than conducting widespread automated campaigns. **Origin & Affiliation:** Ryuk is believed to have origins tied to Russian-speaking cybercriminals and has been linked to the North Korean state-sponsored group Lazarus, though it operates primarily as an independent financially-motivated enterprise. The group has been associated with the TrickBot botnet infrastructure and has collaborated with various initial access brokers rather than operating as a traditional RaaS model. **Attack Methodology:** Ryuk typically gains initial access through spear-phishing campaigns, exploitation of Remote Desktop Protocol vulnerabilities, or by purchasing access from other cybercriminal groups operating banking trojans like TrickBot and Emotet. The operators conduct extensive network reconnaissance using tools like Cobalt Strike, PowerShell Empire, and AdFind before deploying ransomware, often disabling security software and deleting backups. While primarily focused on encryption for ransom, later campaigns incorporated data exfiltration threats as part of double extortion tactics. **Notable Campaigns:** Ryuk has been responsible for major attacks against numerous high-profile targets including multiple hospitals and healthcare systems, causing significant operational disruptions, and has targeted critical infrastructure sectors including municipal governments and educational institutions. The group has demanded ransoms ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, with some of the highest recorded payouts in ransomware history. **Current Status:** Ryuk operations significantly declined following law enforcement disruptions of associated infrastructure like TrickBot in late 2020 and 2021, with many security researchers considering the original Ryuk group largely inactive, though some variants and successors have emerged under different names. The group has been linked to 48 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 4, 2018; most recent post May 18, 2021. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

February 15, 2021Villefranche-sur-Saône (Rhône) Hospital Center listed by ryukon the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Healthcare sector, which has 1,779 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Villefranche-sur-Saône (Rhône) Hospital Center is reported in France, a country with 472 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

How we know this. Darkfield monitors public ransomware leak sites continuously, archiving every new disclosure and the data later released against the victim. Each entry on this page is sourced from the operator's own publication and cross-checked against complementary OSINT feeds (RansomLook, ransomware.live, RansomWatch). We do not collect or host stolen data — only the metadata, timestamps and screenshots needed to make the public disclosure searchable and accountable. Records here are corrected when the original post is edited, retracted, or merged with another disclosure.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

Villefranche-sur-Saône (Rhône) Hospital Center

Claimed by ryuk · listed 5 years ago

64m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Feb 15, 2021
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: ryuk
Status: Data leaked
Country: France
Sector: Healthcare
Listed on leak site: Feb 15, 2021

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Villefranche-sur-Saône Hospital Center is part of the Hôpitaux Nord-Ouest (HNO) network, a public health system serving the north-west of the Rhône department and the Ain in France. The network operates 5 hospitals, 10 EHPADs (care homes for the elderly), 1 maternity unit, and 1 health training institute, employing over 4,000 professionals and handling approximately 270,000 consultations and 50,000 hospitalizations per year. It provides continuous 24/7 public health services across a broad range of specialties.

Industry: Public Hospital & Healthcare Services
Address: Nord-ouest du département du Rhône et dans l'Ain, France (centred on Villefranche-sur-Saône)
Employees: 4000+

Attack summary

Severity: critical — The victim is a public hospital network handling large volumes of sensitive patient medical data (PHI/PII at scale), the disclosure status is 'data_published' confirming exfiltration and release, and healthcare data is classified as regulated/sensitive data under GDPR and French health privacy law. Operational disruption to critical healthcare infrastructure is also a strong likelihood with Ryuk attacks.

The Ryuk ransomware group claims to have attacked the Villefranche-sur-Saône Hospital Center; the disclosure status is listed as 'data_published', indicating that data exfiltration and/or publication has occurred, though no specific data volume or ransom demand was captured in the post.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Patient medical records
Personal health information (PHI)
Staff personnel data
Administrative hospital records
Financial records

Sources

Victim sitehno.fr

Source

Indexed 5 years ago

This page surfaces a public ransomware disclosure indexed by Darkfield. Original posts come from the operator's own leak site; we cross-check against ransomware.live, RansomLook and RansomWatch where applicable. Share this URL freely.